The thing about mustard is – many things, actually, but the main thing is this: If we were all a little more like mustard, the world would be a better place.  So I can’t think of a better seasonal wish…

Think about it. As happy in a Caesar salad as it is on a hot dog, mustard “can dance with Kings and not lose the common touch.” Content to mingle with a pungent horseradish as much as with a sweet clover honey, what person tolerates differences like mustard? As a natural emulsifier, it brings things together like no other food. Whisk other ingredients into mustard and in seconds they find a home and are better together than they were alone.

Memo to U. N. ambassadors: Call your offices and take some lessons! Mustard is a vastly more productive unifier, and it doesn’t cost us as much…by a long shot!

Never tiresome, in both demeanor and appearance, mustard can be sweet, hot, spicy or mild and is comfortable wearing all colors. The ultimate team player, it has no problem being the star or taking a supporting role. Common, local, but at the same time worldly, mustard is multi-national, multi-cultural, multi-everything. Like some kind of strange international superhero, it speaks French, German, Italian, Indian, Spanish, English (the European and the American kind), Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Greek, Italian, all varieties of Mediterranean and African dialects and everything in between.

Everything mustard touches turns to gold–sometimes literally. Decidedly not a sissy, but not obnoxiously macho either; powerful at full strength, soft and subtle when playing with others, mustard leaves a place better than it was before it arrived.  Planted in vineyards to help even our wine taste good, when prepared it is welcomed with equal enthusiasm by cooked creatures of the land and the sea, as well as fruits and vegetables. Would that there were more people like that.

Often misunderstood, mustard exhibits a quiet reliability, providing endless comfort to its companion, the chef. Its history is rich, dating to the Romans; its life is long and it doesn’t go bad, particularly if you call upon it as often as you should. It’s an elegant sauce in a split second, and there is no food item it doesn’t get along with. Mustard is many things we all wish we could be, including a hero in the kitchen, where it can make the home chef look good, quickly and simply:

• Add a little soy sauce to it for a quick sauce that loves any meat or seafood.
• Stir it into some cherry preserves with a splash of balsamic vinegar and see what that does to a grilled duck breast.
• Whisk a little olive oil into it and brush it on a steak before you grill it.
• Use it to jazz up mayonnaise for cole slaw, potato salad, or any sandwich as an instant “special sauce.”

Powerful, yet sensitive to others, food’s version of the renaissance man, as comfortable at a White House dinner as at a trailer park barbeque, a loyal and faithful friend, recognized and loved around the world, reliable, flexible and comforting. Mustard has made the world a better place, and serves as an example for us all.  Happy Holidays.

Comments (1)

1. 

   Bill

   Let’s take it to the UN – what a wonderful metaphor! This post let me see, smell and taste through your words CBJ. [Reply]

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